Letter to my mother

There isn’t a single bottle of perfume on your dressing table. Not even French lace talcum powder that I associated you with in my childhood. There is only one boring piece of some nameless pink soap in the bathroom. Not your usual large collection of fragrant soaps. The bubble bath is gone. Nobody buys or uses it anymore. You always smelled beautifully. I loved sidling up to you and inhaling your perfume. Growing up, I used to think that since we shared the same size hips, and some looks, I would grow up to be as elegant as you were. It didn’t rub off. You were always clean, smart and fragrant. Effortlessly. Everyone else’s mother looked dowdy and un-bathed next to you.

Your earrings and necklaces are gone from your bedside drawers. We gave them all away. Those who got this inheritance don’t quite wear it like you, a slightly awry necklace here, earrings too fashionable for that one. On you it always was perfect.

Your beautiful house still looks beautiful. Just the way you left it. Well sort of. Mandlovu sweeps, scrubs and disinfects it every day. Just the way you like it. Everyone now runs their finger over the furniture, checking for dust. If we pick up a speck, we worry, and quickly get the yellow duster! Even the children know to clean up, just in case you come in and see the dirty walls, dishes in the sink, or  disorganized wardrobes. Sadly we are slacking on some of your housekeeping rules. I now see cups mixed up with dishes. Drinking glasses  in the same water as greasy pans. I shriek at my sons and daughter in law in horror – a bread knife dunked in water  - complete with its wooden handle!  Sorry ma. I am trying. Some standards were just too high for our lot.

We have started drawing the curtains though, and leaving them drawn all day! Come rain come sunshine. You used to hate that. I have finally won the war on this one. I told you, the whole point we bought a North facing house was so that the sunshine could stream in through those big windows in the morning. I kept telling you that the sunshine was supposed to make us all happier, sunnier, more cheerful. You were bothered about the sun burning your sofas and discolouring them. So we fought each time I came home. I would draw the curtains apart, you would draw them back together, casting a shadow over those pretty green and butter-cup walls. Sorry mummy. We do protect the sofas up with throw overs. I hope that makes you happy?

Your garden had become overgrown with weeds. The hedges were too long. And the shrubs had grown into giant trees. All in one year. We trimmed them all on your birthday, December 24^th. We mowed the unwieldy lawn too. I hope you like the new roses we planted. We had to uproot the old pink ones because they didn’t look so beautiful. Sisi Maggie came to inspect the garden after New Year’s. She said it is beautiful. She will tell you more about it.

I am sorry I haven’t been going to church as consistently as I should have. You taught me and my children to love God, and the Methodist church.  I love the singing. I love the familiar rituals and liturgy. The fellowship is a blessing. I look for you in the pews, among all the red blouses, and you are not here. I go to Gweru Central more than my local because I keep hoping you will walk through that door and sit with your fellow Golden Girls. But you are no longer inside the church, and I don’t know how to pray and sing without you. Hymn 191, your favourite, makes me weep. So you will forgive me if I spend six weeks without going to a service. It is hard to keep up my faith and hope. It is even harder to find the verses and chapters in the Bible when you are not here to quickly turn the pages to the right section.  

You will also be disappointed to know that I haven’t learnt the art of speaking in a low voice. Mum, you have only been gone a year. It is early days yet. You used to cringe when dad’s side of the family got together and we shouted at the tops of our voice. “Hayi, MaKaranga bakithi!” you would cringe. I haven’t put it in any of my resolutions because I know I will fail miserably. You in contrast were the epitome of measured calmness. Maybe I should hold you accountable for not passing on enough of your good genes to me?   

I don’t know how I have survived this whole year without you. But I have. Over the last year, people have said a lot of trite little things like; oh she had lived a full life. Oh she has gone to a better place. Time will heal your pain. I don’t know what to think of all these things. Actually I do know what I think. They are not helpful! You are my mother, the one who gave me life, and my bearings.  You were my true North. I am lost. I don’t know what to do with myself. I wanted you to live to 200 years. I want you here, and not in some invisible “better place”. I still want to smell your perfume each morning as you come to tell me you are going off to your shop. And I expect to see you walk through that door each evening, dog tired but happy to put up your feet. I want to sing and pray with you. I still need you to show me how to cook sweet potatoes, rice with peanut butter and “road runner chickens”. My children need to call you to tell you they passed their exams. Today Andile passed his A Levels, and he had no grand- mother to call and celebrate with him. Collen is doing well in University and we need you at his graduation. I am expecting my second grand child and we need you here to help us raise your great grandchildren.  So I don’t want to be told that you have gone to a better place, where we can’t see you and enjoy your love.

Today, I will not say those trite things to you or to myself. I love you mummy. I miss you. The children miss you. I bought you the new Chanel perfume in a black bottle. I am keeping it for you. I am buying hats for you and wearing them.  I am keeping the houses clean, the way you want them. I am trying to raise the children the way you would have done it. I am trying to be a good person. Not a religious zealot. As you always said, “it doesn’t matter how matter how many times you say God this, or church that, just be a good human being to other human beings. That is all we are required to be”. I don’t know how I am doing on that score.

I will plant more flowers in both our gardens because I know you love flowers and flowers remind me of you. Today, I will sing Hymn 191, and I will cry. I will pray. And cry some more.  Then I will draw the curtains, and hopefully the sun will be out and it will stream through. And cheer me up.

Patriarchy on hind legs

I saw patriarchy today. It was on its hind legs.  Arms akimbo, it stood at the door, surveying the room. Appraising all of us. Up, a lesser being jumped! He smiled so wide I feared his face would crack. As he got closer to it, he started clapping his hands in greeting, the traditional way. Then he went down, almost squatting, all the while clapping those hands in this endless greeting. The meeting froze. The cameraman turned the lens towards it. Satisfied with the greeting, patriarchy clapped back to acknowledge the greeting and told the lesser being to stand.

 It was led to the high table.  The special place reserved for it. Up on the podium, from whence it could continue to appraise us. The flowers were beautiful, a massive bouquet that must have cost at least twenty real dollars. Even the bottled water laid in front of it was of a different variety. We all had the cheaper 50 cent sort. Patriarchy sat back in its high chair, took out its three mobile phones and laid them out in front of itself. Not bothering to turn them off, or putting them on silent. Patriarchy is important you see. It must be available 25/7. It cannot miss a call. Besides, it can always answer its phone mid speech, “hello! Yes! It is me. Yes. Me; Honourable/doctor /ambassador/engineer/prophet/reverend/bishop/Mr/father of/Minister/chief/imam”

It always has to remind the caller and all within ear shot, of its importance.

I celebrated patriarchy today. Aided and abetted its power over me, over all of us. There is a special way to greet it. Colourful. Wordy. Full of humility. The longer it is the better. The lesser being took the microphone. Asked another lesser being to welcome the great patriarch, in that special way reserved for patriarchy. Lesser being two obliged. Down he squatted. Asked all of us to clap our hands in unison while he chanted the greeting. A long, colourful praise poem. Praising the totem. Inviting the ancestors of the totem into the room. Thanking patriarchy for gracing us with its presence, we of lesser importance. Then he invited us the women, nay ordered the women to ululate, in the special way that women ululate for power. I do not possess the gift of ululation – fortunately. So I sat with my mouth half open in amazement, while my sisters’ ululation must have rung all the way to Samora Machel Avenue.  Patriarchy fiddled with one of its phones, then, the other. Clearly bored by this performance for its supplication.

I saw patriarchy last week. It was on its hind legs in another room, in another town. It walked into the room late. All the chairs were taken. Mostly by women. There was only the floor mat left, next to the woman in the blue dress. She shifted to make space for it. But it stood erect, and smirked.
Then the women on the chairs got the message through osmosis– make way, make way, patriarchy is here!  Suddenly three chairs were vacant. Oh two more! Plus four more! Such a vast choice. It surveyed the chairs, appraised the room, and chose the one strategically next to the window. It was too hot to sit anywhere else.

Patriarchy is good at 'interpreting' words and others' thoughts. Even when we are speaking the same language; “what this woman is TRYING to say is.....I think the BROADER issue is......The more strategic discussion IS.....

See, it is the role of patriarchy to think for lesser beings, to interpret their words, and even to yank thoughts out of their heads. Patriarchy feels it carries the burden of framing every discussion and reframe it so that we lesser mortals get it/get with the program/abandon our silly ideas/think bigger/think better/generally fall in line.
Then there is the real interpretation. It is the role of patriarchy to provide literal translation for those of us who don’t speak ‘the language’ at all, or well. English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese. That language. It is the duty of patriarchy to translate as well as decide what is important and what is not. I listened to patriarchy two weeks ago, up in Binga, in Siachilaba ward. The women spoke Tonga. The visitors spoke only Shona. Translation was needed.

“I was very happy to buy my own pots with the money I got from the garden”, Georgina said.  

Translation; “haaa, she is just saying some small -small things.”  

I heard patriarchy in Haiti three years ago. It had to translate from Creole to English, for the visitors to understand each other with the women in the program. “Sometimes we don’t even enjoy the sex!” said Marie. All the women affirmed her with claps and whoops. We were bemused. What had she said? No translation. All picture, no sound. We asked for translation, it wouldn’t come. We begged.  Then we got angry. Demanded it! “Well, she just said something very silly, you don’t need to hear it”. Patriarchy clapped its mouth shut and looked the other way. Patriarchy had spoken. It had decided. This was not to be spoken about. Not on its watch.  

All my photos are full of patriarchy. It put its paternalistic arm around me in every picture. I am not sure why. In workplace conference group photos, community photos, social gatherings.  It just wanted to touch. To feel?  To protect? Who? From what? We will never know. We just know we were OWNED.

I can now spot patriarchy from a mile off. I have learnt its ways. Some of them still fox me. Some still surprise me. I just need to get better at dealing with it, when it walk in on its hind legs.

 

More weddings, less funerals

"You are looking for the one who was sick? He is not here anymore. He is gone". My heart sank, I looked at my colleague. He looked down. The old woman was confused, wondering why we were crest-fallen. "No, no! I don't mean gone, gone.  I mean he has gone where others go!" Even more confusing. We only knew of one place where "others" had gone in the last fifteen and more years. Somewhere up in the sky. Or the other wing. The woman kept up her bright smile. "I mean he went Egoli! To Johannesburg! Where everyone goes these days. He needed to find a job. What could he do here in the village? So we found some cash, and sent him on his way. He was now very healthy. Very, very fit. Agh, sorry, you thought I meant he was dead? Oh no. He is very much alive!"

This story was related to me by one of my colleagues in an anti- HIV & AIDS program that my organization supports. The same story has been repeated over and over and these last two weeks as I went around visiting our program partners, and the communities they work with. There are no more Home based care (HBC) patients. Most of them are up and about. Thanks to the availability of Anti Retroviral Treatment in Zimbabwe. This is one big change that has occured since I have been gone. Let me say, since I lost the third of my siblings in 2000. Everywhere we go, the partners have largely abandoned the HBC programs.  Gone are the days of distributing bars of soap, detergents, gloves, and bed sheets. Now it's medication, nutrition, and livelihoods.

One of the things I so looked forward to when I left Zimbabwe was the luxury of spending each weekend in my own house not going to funerals, or to pass condolences for the ones I had missed.  I relished the idea of weeks and weeks without having to bury anyone. I so yearned to listen to, dance and enjoy my favourite Reggae music. I had to clear the space clogged by funeral dirges which had become the songs in my head.  Yet I dreaded the expense of flying out every month to come bury a relative or two. I opened a separate funeral/illness fund. I abandoned it after three years. I had hardly saved anything. 

This whole year I have only buried three people whose HIV status I knew. What bliss! Ok that sounds wrong. But you get the picture.  Both Granville cemetery and Westpark did not look like giant "festivals" when we had the two funerals. Back in the late 1990s, if you were given a burial time of 1100hr you just had to be there at 1100hr, and finish by 1200hr. If you spent too long you would be drowned out by the funeral next to you, and the other one on the other side. Women decked in their church uniforms, the Lutherans in purple, the Methodists in  red, the Anglicans in blue, and the ubiquitous Mapostori in white looked festive and sang in their loudest voices while the drums competed. Anyone passing by the cemetries who didn't know any better would think we were all on colourful picnics. Ice cream, juice, milk and fruit vendors soon found captive markets and they would descend on the "picnic" sites in droves. They made a good killing - pardon the bad taste pun. In 1998, my brothers and I ended up on first name terms with one of the undertakers. "Ah welcome back the Mawarires! Nice to see you!" The poor fellow forgot where he was. Nice to see us? We quickly forgave him, he had seen us thrice, in three months. 

I have only visited two elderly relatives in hospital this whole year, both of them with diabetes. More bliss! By 2001, I could find my way round Parirenyatwa hospital or the Avenues Clinic with my eyes closed. Of course there was always one ward in each, whose very mention you knew what it signaled.  I damaged my left hip going up and down those stairs at Pari by walking too soon after a major operation. We just had to do what had to be done. 

Anti retrovirals are now easily available and affordable. Just last week, I got a frantic call from a friend whose brother did not know how and where to access ARVs.  By the end of that very day, we had three people calling back to say let him come and get them. The very next day, a community based organization dispatched a counsellor on a bicycle to his rural home. ARVs by room service! 
In Binga, one of the remotest, and poorest districts in Zimbabwe where I just came back from, dozens of women and men told me their stories of living with HIV. This in very public forums and in mixed groups. They showed me their vegetable gardens where they grow all varities of veg for themselves and for sale. Some have started income generating projects which - yeah yeah before all you NGO naysayers ask- they actually do generate tangible income! Women and men sang (what is an NGO visit without a song and dance for the 'donor'?) about the goodness of Anti Retroviral Treatment, and encouraged men to accompany their wives to go and get PMTCT drugs.

 HIV is still around. Thousands of people have it. There are even new infections. There are still some people dying. I met two 'peer educators' who between them have six wives. That is not the story for today though. I have been to six weddings in the last year. In my church the wedding banns take at least 20 minutes each Sunday. At weddings and parties if the food service is late, you are sure to hear several people shouting, "hurry up, those of us on medication need to take our pills on time!" And you know they are not talking cancer medication. I am fascinated by women I have seen exchanging stories about their pills, comparing the colours, wondering why they are different. They laugh at one another, "ah my HIV is probably bigger than yours".

Zimbabweans might be poor, suffering under the economic crisis and the political yoke is still around our necks. But AIDS related deaths no longer stalk the land. I am happy that thousands of women no longer have to carry clinics on their heads, as my friend Edna at Women's Action Group once put it. They can get on with their own lives and have a little snooze if they wish.

I have a song in my heart and it's Bunny Wailer's Rock and Groove. It's not Jerusalem My Home. Now where to find a big shocking green hat then a purple fascinator for those two Christmas weddings? 

 

Where am I?

"So how does it feel to be BACK home? You must be happy to be BACK? Isn't it great to be BACK?" Back, and home. I can't relate to those two words. Back means returning to something or some place familiar. Where one originally came from. Home is supposed to be that place you are 100% sure of. Your truth North. "I can always go back home", I would say to myself when fed up with Johannesburg. "Don't treat me as if I haven't got a home to go back to", I would scream at the human resources manager when I was in a foul mood.  Yet here I am, exactly a year to the day that I arrived in Harare, and I still can't even put it in words.

I recognize many of the landmarks. Sure, the streets look familiar. There is Samora Machel Avenue. I remember where it meets Fourth Street. The jacarandas are in full bloom along Sherwood Drive. My house is still where I left it, past Westgate Shopping mall. My uncle's house is still at the end of the cul de sac, in Warren Park. I can find it in the dark. My favourite cafe, Number 40 Cork Road, still serves those delightful crepes, while the sweet potato vendors still park their rickety cars  along Lomagundi Road. I swear those measuring buckets are still the same ones they used in 2002.
Yet, so much has changed in this country and in this city since I have been gone, I don't recognize this as my home, as the place I came 'back' to. This is a new Zimbabwe. These are all new Zimbabweans.  The language is unfamiliar. The conversations are new and strange. The values are from another world. What matters to those I thought I knew, I can not relate to. As my friend Lisa V's mum declared on arrival in Beijing, in her Santa Fe drawl, "this is what they call a foreign country!"

Yes losing my mother very suddenly, three months after I arrived here has contributed to my loss of bearings. I have lost the sense and meaning of this as 'home'. But this is only a part of the story.
In the next few weeks I shall find the words and paint you a picture. I will try to answer that question you have asked dear friend, "how does it feel to be (back), in Zimbabwe?"  If I sound incoherent, it is because I have no vocabulary to describe what I see, or more accurately how I feel.  Sometimes it will be because I am very sad, and in despair. I hope the joy and happiness that I feel on the odd Wednesday comes through as well.

I will not be writing about those three men you know or hear so much about. They are not Zimbabwe. They are a very small part of it. The real Zimbabwe, the real stuff that is happening here is way beyond these men and I dare say, way beyond even their understanding.  There are far more interesting 'new people' that I have come across, whose lives and lifestyles should be the subject of several novels and movies. 

I will stay away from the big political headlines because those are actually the least interesting  about this new Zimbabwe. There is a whole other country far from the media's gaze, interest or even comprehension.
Come with me, as I discover Zimbabwe and her people.  I hope you like foreign countries.

 

For my son Andile at 18

The day you have been waiting for has finally dawned. I have watched you desperate to come of age. In many respects 18 is the magic age. First you get to vote! And you must vote. The world is run by those who participate. I have told you that before. I know you have heard too many people say oh it’s a waste of time. Politicians are corrupt. They never do anything for us. Your silence makes it worse. Vote, show them that you matter. Even if they rig, they will be rigging based on knowledge that you don’t want them!

You are now allowed to have pleasurable safe sex. Yes you are. Sex is a wonderful thing, to be enjoyed, with someone you genuinely like and love. Sex is not equals to pain, disease, and death – as you may have seen all around you as you grew up. It doesn’t have to be like that. Take your time though. Sex will always be there, when you are 69 or 103. As I told you when you turned 16, know yourself, your sexual preference and your sexuality. There isn’t one pre-destined-cast in stone-this is how a man should be thing. No. We live in a world of choices. That is why I have exposed you to the world, from Vietnam to Cambodia, Johannesburg to New York. It’s all yours honey. Be a global citizen.

Narrow mindedness and fundamentalism has no place in a rights respecting family or society. Be open to learning. Be open to other cultures. Appreciate diversity. Value every human being. We all have a story to tell. Or as that lovely song by Ray Phiri says, “we are all tributaries of that great river of pain, flowing into one ocean”. I prefer to see it as a great river of joy and love. Hatred of “the other”, intolerance of those whose lives you don’t understand, or stereotyping them, should be anathema to you. You would know this better my son. They said children of single mums were badly behaved brats with no manners or direction. Look how you have turned out, even if I say so myself!

You are at the point of choosing a university course of study. It is hard. Choose something that you will love doing, and as someone once said to me, something so portable that you can make a living anywhere in the world from it. Choose something that will not only earn you money but that will enable you to make a difference to other human beings’ lives. You will enjoy your university years. So much freedom, so much to learn, so much fun stuff to do, so many mates! These will be the best years of your life. Enjoy them.

A year ago you chose to be confirmed as an Anglican. Good for you. Grow spiritually, in whatever direction you choose. Always remember that a church or a mosque, or a temple doesn’t make you a better person. It simply helps you along. It is not about mouthing it each day or proclaiming your religiousness on your face-book page. No. It is the love, care and compassion and respect for the rights of ALL your fellow human beings that matters. You can live your entire life without ever darkening a religious establishment’s door, but it is what you do, say and how you live your life with others that truly matters. Your faith is yours. Don’t foist it on anyone else. Respect others’ choices.


I am so proud of how you have matured in the last two years. You now watch and read current affairs. You have to know your Achebe from your Dangarembga. You care about South Sudan. You don’t know how proud I was of the week you spent during your last holidays building a school in Alexandra township. I have seen you indignant when you witness injustice and pain inflicted on others.

You have turned 18 in the year that your dear granny left us, three months ago. I don’t know what she would say to you if she was here. What I do know is that she will always love and protect you wherever she is. She will be happy if you continue to grow up as a gentle, caring, loving and GIVING man. Giving to others doesn’t mean you have excess, or you want it publicized through megaphones. Just love and give. That is the rent you pay for being on this beautiful planet.

I love you my youngest ‘baby’. You keep me sane each day.

Security means uncurling my toes....

What does security mean to you? That was the question surrounding this year’s 16 days of activism theme. Militarism, conflict, state sponsored violence, political violence, were some of the sub-themes we campaigned on. We talked about the big stuff, the big news tickets of the moment. The news coming out of Syria continues to be unbearable. Libya is still on the boil. In the DR Congo, thousands are fleeing across the borders, fearing for their lives as the election results are about to be announced. In Burma, Hilary Clinton smiled for the cameras and got paly-paly with the generals, temporarily shorn of their uniforms for better picture quality. In various Northern capitals anti capitalist protestors were carted off the streets, sometimes violently. At COP17, things got ugly and civil society had to be shoved back into their small allotted space. The wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan rage on. None of these places is too far away or too foreign. I know women there. I have met them. I know their names. They are my friends. I worry about them. I text. I email. I skype them. Just to make sure they are ok. Being a global citizen means you curl your toes each time you watch the news.

The so called ‘security forces’ and law enforcement agencies continue to frighten me and other women out of our wits. In my home number two, the South African Police service decided that adopting militarized titles and ranks was the way to…..what? Instill discipline? Show seriousness? Give the service more gravitas? Induce fear? Each time I enter Rosebank police station to get my documents certified, I am greeted by a “colonel”, and sometimes a “lieutenant” looks over his shoulder. I clutch my bags in fear. I smile feebly and answer their questions with too many words, and run out as soon as I can. Thankfully I have never had to report a crime, or ask to be taken to a place of safety by these “soldiers”, because I just don’t know where they would take me! I don’t feel secure with a police man called “general”, no matter how much he smiles, or tries to convince me he is here for my protection.
In home number one, my state President goes by the grand title of, “Comrade Robert Mugabe, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, the First Secretary of ZANU PF and commander in chief of the armed forces”. This for a man with seven (well earned), University degrees! If he needed any accolades he has the BA, BA Hons, etc to pick from. Being told that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces is not meant to make me respect the man. It says, ‘Be very afraid. He has guns. Pointed at your head. One move we don’t like and we pull the triggerS”. I know who is in control. And if I forget I am reminded on the hour every hour by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
I curl my toes. I draw my knees together. That is the effect men in uniform have on me. The military industrial complex announces itself, advertises itself and reminds us ‘they’ are in control of our countries, our lives, our bodies.

But it is not only these visible manifestations of our militarized world that make me insecure. Going to the supermarket makes me frightened. I am scared to see the price of food. I worry about whether there will be enough month left at the end of the money. I am too scared to ask a woman with three children how she lives on a twenty dollars per month wage. Yesterday I took my son to a doctor and she asked for 50 dollars just to write a referral note to the radiographer. In the space of two weeks I have buried two women, both aged 44, both died from diseases that could have been easily managed. I don’t fear death. I fear an undignified and painfully unnecessary death, such as I have seen countless times around me.
Two days ago I met a beautiful young person who identifies themselves as trans-gender. I immediately started worrying about how she was going to get out of that hotel back to her home in the township. What hoops she would have to navigate to ensure her own safety. I keep hearing the hateful sermons preached at one of those funerals I went to, “these ngochani are an abomination! We must cast the devils out of them! If you are a ngochani come forward so we pray for you!” I keep curling my toes and drawing my knees up.
A lot can happen in 16 days. And it did! So we come to the end of this year’s 16 days of activism against gender based violence. It has been an amazing two decades of organizing by women, and a few good men, all over the world. To hear some talk today you would think they invented the campaign and made us women too while they were at it. Well let us not go there. I suppose we should just be happy that what started off as an idea, almost a pipe dream, with only 24 women, has grown to be one of the most well known global campaigns. Who says the feminist movement is small, insignificant and the changes it has brought can’t be “measured. If anybody had asked us on that bright summer day at Rutgers, what will success look like? How will you measure it? I don’t think we would have been able to provide an answer, let alone imagine that this is what the 16 days campaign would achieve. Hear yee, monitoring and evaluation zealots. This is what success looks like!
So what does security mean to me? It means uncurling my toes, unclenching my knuckles, free of fear - real or imagined, and living a life of dignity, experiencing sexual and other kinds of pleasure, and having the right to make choices.

What security means to me

Great Britain, to itself. Blighty to the rest of us. A country that probably was once "great", and wanted everyone to know it, see it and feel it. Today, the signs of that greatness are dimming, except perhaps in the big statues that dot the city of London. Big, huge, grandiose statues, celebrating the (imperial) heroes of old.
In this Britain is not alone. All over the world, it seems, our city fathers, (good name that, city fathers, very appropriate for who I think has this mindset), think it is necessary to erect (another good word), these grandiose reminders of their nations' MILITARY greatness. Military/war heroes are immortalized in marble and other indestructible material, so that we remember them, we celebrate them. On a visit to Cambodia in July, I could not complete the obligatory many hours in Angkor Wat. Dozens of wall murals - which must have taken years to etch, reminded us of the many wars fought and presumably won.
In Rome, the military statues are a marvel. One can not help but be taken in by them. You can hear the chariots of the Emperors clop clopping through the cobbled street as you gaze up at the imposing things high above your head.
It is interesting isn't it? We with forked tongue speak about the evilness of wars, we decry the violence perpetrated on women and girls during these wars. Yet, everywhere around us, our countries' history is celebrated through military statues and displays celebrating the greatness of war.

Even more worrying is the fact that, to this day, visiting heads of state or dignitaries are welcomed by "a military guard of honour". I still do not understand what that is about. Well I do. The message to the visitor is; look how what a great nation we are, see our men in uniform, don't mess with us now, we are very capable of blowing you and yours to smitherins, better behave yourself and speak nice to us during this visit, because we are armed...to the teeth.
Is the display of military might the only way to welcome a visitor to your "home"? How about, just stopping at the garlands of flowers? Would that not be nice and civil enough? If we must parade anything for the visitor, how about our smartest and brightest young people, showing what a great new generation we have coming up? No guns, no goose-stepping, just a nice welcome.
And why bury people with a 21 gun salute? A gun salute? That is supposed to....what? Send the deceased in a blaze of military glory to their maker? Get ready you up there here he comes! Ka boom! Ka boom! Better be good to him or else...ka boom!

Security for me means not being reminded that the world is a giant militarized zone. It means not celebrating war and all that goes with it.
And it means not being greeted by reminders of imperialist wars - of any kind.